Chapter 9: Storm

The storm came off the lake at ten that night, and it took the power with it.

The shop went black in the middle of a sentence, and I was in the middle of reading Cecelia's text for the third time.

Real papers meant the ones I hadn't seen, and I had not told her which ones I was afraid of.

My phone went dark in my hand with her answer still unsent.

Wind hit the tin walls. Rain hammered the roof so hard I couldn't hear the stove.

"Stay where you are," Cal said from across the floor. "There's a lantern by the door."

I heard his boots, heavy left and light right, crossing the planks.

A match scratched.

Yellow light bloomed across the launch's pale ribs, and then his hand, then his chin.

He set the lantern on the bench between us.

"Cold?" he asked.

"A little."

He brought the quilt from the cot and put it around my shoulders, and his fingers stopped at my collarbone.

He stood there with the lantern shaking the shadows on the wall.

"June," he said. "I'm going to say something and I want you to let me finish."

"All right."

"For three days I've been counting rule two. Every time you stand next to me, I count it."

My mouth went dry.

"I wrote rule three myself. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it."

"What are you thinking about?"

"Rule two, Ms. Almgren," he said quietly.

It was my own line, tossed back.

I laughed, a short, helpless sound, and my knees felt strange.

"That's not fair."

"You started it."

"I did," I said. "I'm asking."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Swapped Himself Out at the Altar, So I Married the Honest Stranger from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.